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notapaladinoh god i’ve done it again. MORE teocatl for your viewing pleasure, this time with HUGE SPOILERS for book 3, Master of the House of Darts. after the events of that book, Teomitl dreams. Mihmatini helps. Acatl, meanwhile? He’s suffering. Here there be fluff.
Also on AO3
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The Revered Speaker’s mat is cold, and Teomitl can barely feel his legs. He wants to move, to sprawl out more comfortably, but he can’t.
There are too many people here. Watching him. The receiving room is packed, a sea of faces he can barely differentiate. All are in their best regalia, feathers and cotton and jade, and they are all bowing to him. Mihmatini is kneeling, her face downcast, her eyes expressionless. The Turquoise-and-Gold Crown is an impossible weight, and he thinks his neck will break from the strain.
He breathes in. Breathes out. His heart thumps steadily in his chest, a reminder that he is alive.
There is someone missing, he realizes after a while. Some gap in the crowd, a knot in the weave. Something is wrong. His gaze sharpens, focuses, and alights at the back of the room.
There is a man standing there, gaze averted. But unlike the rest of the room, who drop their eyes to the floor in respect, his stance is stiff. Teomitl has a confused impression of owl wings—no, a gray cloak—of a skull, grinning and fleshless—no, a mask. He knows, without looking, that this man has not removed his sandals.
“As one man to another…”
The crown tumbles to the floor as he shoots to his feet. The crowd does not move, still as statues and insubstantial as mist as he runs through them. Acatl, he cries, but his voice carries no sound.
Acatl is turning away. Acatl has seen him—he catches the flash of a dark eye—but he is turning away, cold and uninterested, and it makes Teomitl’s heart clench in his throat. If he can just catch up—
His hand closes around Acatl’s wrist for a moment, and then Acatl pulls away.
No!
Before he can call Acatl’s name, the world around him melts and shifts, and then he is standing in that courtyard again, watching from the sidelines like a ghost. As if through fog, he sees Mihmatini and her brothers arrayed against him. They are exhausted and bleeding, and their blood shines like the sun on the water. And he sees himself and his warriors, arrogant and proud and so, so stupid.
He sees his own mouth move; he can’t make out the words, but he knows it’s something he should never have said. He sees Acatl respond, pleading at first—and then angry. And then straightening up, blood wisping like smoke around him, and taking a step forward.
He watches, unable to move, as he draws his sword and cuts Acatl down.
He woke shaking, with tears in his eyes, and hastily sat up to scrub at them with the back of a hand. No, it was just a nightmare. He wouldn’t…he wouldn’t…
“Teomitl?”
Oh. He’d woken Mihmatini, who was pushing her hair out of her face and sitting up for a better look at him. He immediately felt worse. “Go back to sleep.”
Even in the darkness of their bedroom, he could see the unimpressed look she gave him. “I’m awake. Bad dream?”
She didn’t bring up the tears, and he was grateful for that. “…Mm.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Your brother,” he blurted out. He didn’t want to talk about it, but once the dam broke all his words flooded out, a gout of blood from the heart of a sacrifice. “Acatl-tzin. He—I was Revered Speaker, and he was there in full regalia but he wouldn’t even look at me. I’d—he didn’t care to know me anymore.” I’d disappointed him. He would be my High Priest, but never again my Acatl. He sucked in a breath. “…And then I was in…that courtyard. With my sister. And I said something—I don’t know what I said, but he was going to fight me, and I—I killed him.” When he blinked, he could see the spray of blood on the inside of his eyelids. He glanced at Mihmatini out of the corner of his eye, and added, “And then you killed me.”
“I would.” It was a simple statement of fact, and he exhaled. It was perversely reassuring to know that. Her voice was quiet. “But…about the rest of it…”
She wanted an answer. He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to fight him. I don’t want him to be a—a stranger to me.”
Mihmatini was silent for a long moment, and he was terrified he’d given too much away, but then her hand came up to rub his shoulder in a soothing little circle and he could breathe again. It was breath that was entirely stolen when she informed him, “I’ve spent two years watching the way he looks at you when he thinks you don’t notice. I think even if you pulled another stupid stunt like you did with your sister, he would never treat you like that.”
The world was reeling around him. He was only vaguely conscious of his extremities, and he wouldn’t be able to swear in a court of law that his heart was still beating. “I.” He wondered if swooning like a maiden was an actual possibility. “The way Acatl-tzin looks—?! How does he—?” Priests take vows of chastity, he thought stupidly, and then I never thought there was a chance—
The part of his brain not currently screaming in panic mused that Mihmatini didn’t sound angry or jealous, both emotions he’d have expected in her place. She mostly just sounded as though she was explaining the facts to a particularly slow student. “Like you put the sun in the sky. Like how I looked at you, back when I thought I was in love with you.”
The revelations really needed to slow down, he thought dizzily. It was too early in the morning for this. “You’re not in love with me? Oh, thank the gods.”
“I will forgive you for that since clearly you’re overwrought, but…” She shook her head. “I like you. I will always love you as a friend, even when I want to strangle you, and this…” she gestured between them at their naked bodies “Is fantastic, but once I realized you can’t keep your eyes off my brother…”
Grandmother Earth, open up and swallow him right now. It would be kinder than this. “Ah.” Of course he’d known Acatl was as off-limits as it was possible to be—even if the man wasn’t a priest, Teomitl had been trying to court his sister, and certainly wanted marriage and children of his own—but from the moment he’d seen him on the temple steps, serious and tired and in desperate need of someone to take care of him, he’d been unable to look away. It had only gotten worse the longer they’d known each other; each smile, each clasp of hands or brush of fabric, each turn of a slender wrist or curve of a shoulder sent a knife through his heart. He’d done his best not to let it show on his face, for all their sakes. He thought he’d been successful.
He swallowed hard. “Mihmatini, I’m…”
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You can apologize to me by talking to Acatl. There’s a limit to how much pining I can take.”
There was a noise like a startled parrot. It took him a second to realize it had came from his throat. “You what. I—how should I—he doesn’t even—“
“He does.” Her voice was firm. “Priests aren’t allowed to marry, but you know almost everyone experiments in the calmecac and that doesn’t count—“
“I didn’t.” He’d had an embarrassingly deep crush on one of his teachers, true, but nothing else. There had always seemed to be more important things to do. Belatedly his mind conjured up the image of a younger Acatl with shorter hair, wrapped up with another boy, and he grit his teeth against a jolt of jealousy.
“—And believe me, Teomitl, I have caught his eyes on you like a jaguar on a deer.” She paused. “…A pitiful, embarrassed jaguar. But a jaguar.”
He thought of the way Acatl’s gaze normally rested on him, a sort of fondly exasperated tenderness. He imagined that gaze growing heated, the casual glances turning into something focused and lingering. He’d thought he’d seen it once, when he’d shed his regalia, but he’d convinced himself he was mistaken. With Mihmatini’s words, it didn’t seem such an obvious conclusion anymore.
He’d almost lost everything once by not talking to the people he cared about. He wouldn’t do it again.
He turned to look Mihmatini in the face. “What do you think I should do?”
The expression on her face shifted to undisguised relief. “Well…”
- -
Acatl had not been expecting visitors. When he stepped into his own courtyard to meet the gaze of a waiting Teomitl, he froze. The afternoon sunlight turned the world gold, sinking into Teomitl’s skin like honey and setting the jewels in his ears and at his wrists aflame. He barely registered the fine cotton cloak edged with colorful embroidery, too distracted by his hesitant smile. It had been months since they’d spent any great deal of time together, since that day on the temple steps when Teomitl had apologized to him. Acatl hadn’t realized how much it was possible to miss someone who was still present. He’d almost—almost—started wishing for a case they could solve together.
And now he was here, looking nervous but hopeful, with—Acatl turned his eyes away from that smile before he did something stupid—a basket of fruit by his feet. Alright. He could handle this.
“Teomitl.” I missed you. “It’s been a while.”
Teomitl couldn’t quite turn crimson, but he looked like he wanted to. It made something in Acatl’s chest twinge. “It has been. I…the fruit is for you.”
He’d known that, but hearing it confirmed was touching all the same. He risked meeting Teomitl’s eyes and saw in them a tenderness that made him smile back. “I do eat, you know.”
“Not enough,” Teomitl huffed, before flashing him a sweet smile. “And you like these.”
“Now you sound like my sister.”
“…Your sister is very wise.”
The entrance curtain jingled as they went inside. Aside from their breathing, it was the only sound for a long moment as Acatl tried to think what in the Fifth World could have brought Teomitl there today. As happy as he was to see him bright and regal and alive, lounging on the mat as though it was his house and not Acatl’s—a thought that made his face heat up, as his treacherous mind conjured an image of coming home to find Teomitl sprawled out on his sleeping mat waiting for him—not knowing why Teomitl had decided to show up with an extravagant fruit basket and a warm look itched at him.
Teomitl started cutting up a pineapple, and Acatl found his thoughts scattering as his gaze drifted to Teomitl’s hands on the knife. He really did have wonderful hands, he mused. Strong and long-fingered, touched here and there by faint scars and bearing the calluses that only came from wielding a macuahuitl—and yet, for all that, they’d always been gentle when they touched his skin. He wondered how those hands would feel—no. No. With an effort, he wrenched his mind away from that line of thought. He’s not for me to want.
“Here.” Pineapple juice glistened on Teomitl’s dark skin as he held out a slice, and Acatl swallowed unconsciously at the look on his face—open, encouraging, guileless.
He took the fruit and ate it just to have something to do that wasn’t staring. It was just-ripe and so sweet it almost hurt his teeth, but it was better than sitting there fantasizing about his former student. His brother-in-law, gods, he didn’t even want to think about how Mihmatini would feel if she knew. He had to break the silence between them. “You…came here just to bring me food? Or did something happen?” Duality, he thought, don’t tell me… “Is Mihmatini alright? I haven’t seen her very much lately.”
Teomitl fidgeted with the edge of his cloak, which—now that Acatl was looking—he saw was embroidered with jaguars chasing deer. The sun gilded the thread, glinted fire off the rings on his fingers. “She’s fine—just busy, still dealing with the plague. She sends her love. I came to tell you that I…about that incident after the coronation war…”
He couldn’t help but sigh. “If you’re about to apologize again—“
Teomitl was silent. Acatl saw by his face that he had been about to say something along those lines, and shook his head decisively. If you’re going to be like that, then I’m going to do something I should have done a long time ago. Something, in fact, he’d wanted to do since realizing Teomitl’s hair was growing out, thick and black and fluffy.
He reached out and ruffled it. Hard.
Teomitl froze for a moment, eyes wide, and then jerked his head back; for a split second he looked deeply offended, and then he caught Acatl’s eye and burst out laughing. “Acatl-tzin, you—really—“
Acatl unsuccessfully fought the urge to grin at him. “You’ve already told me you’re sorry. Unless you’ve done something else?” He might have, a paranoid part of his mind whispered. He gave it a firm mental kick.
He stalled for time with a slice of pineapple, but Acatl knew by the look on his face that, whatever he had come for, it wasn’t politics or a danger to the Fifth World. “Last night,” he began hesitantly, “I dreamt that I was Revered Speaker, and everyone bowed to me. Everyone except you.”
A chill slid down his spine. “Teomitl—“
Teomitl kept talking over him. “You were in the back, in all your regalia—you looked incredible, you always do—and you wouldn’t move, or take off your sandals, and you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t even look at me. Whatever I’d done, you didn’t even want to associate with me. That was bad enough, but then…” His voice lowered, until Acatl had to strain to hear him. “We were in that courtyard, and I watched myself kill you. And I could do nothing.” The smile that twisted his lips had nothing in common with joy. “Mihmatini took care of avenging you, though.”
He breathed in. It was all he could do. His chest ached with it.
“I…I don’t ever want any of that to happen, Acatl. You mean too much to me.”
“I…” Words seemed to have failed him. Where he’d been cold before, now his skin felt like it was on fire, his heart racing. He wiped his hands on his thighs, which didn’t help. I mean too much to him. He thinks I look incredible. “Teomitl, what are you saying?”
“…I said, once, that you weren’t mine.” Teomitl met his eyes, fierce as an eagle, and Acatl’s heart skipped a beat. “I won’t apologize for that.”
He dug his nails into his skin. The pain grounded him. “Alright…?” Just tell me, damn you. Tell me so I know whether to die or not.
“But.” Teomitl swallowed visibly, dropping his gaze to the floor—but his hand came to rest on the table, an open invitation. A shaft of sunlight fell across it. “I want to be yours.”
Oh. Oh. For a small eternity, Acatl’s mind went blank. He wants—he wants me. Me. The thought was dizzying; all the times Teomitl had bandaged his wounds, guarded him while he slept, stood jade-carved and terrible between him and destruction were engraved in his memories. And too, there were the times Teomitl had stretched like a young jaguar, or smiled so sweetly at him, or had let a touch linger a bit too long, and he’d felt desire simmer so close to the surface that he’d had to withdraw for his own sanity. And now Teomitl had come to him, and he…
The sweetness of the fruit he’d just eaten almost made him gag, now. “Teomitl. Does Mihmatini know?”
Teomitl made a noise of pure embarrassment, squeezing his eyes shut. “I told her. She was the one that encouraged—she told me that she wasn’t in love with me, and that you…might…as one man to another…”
For the second time that afternoon, Acatl felt like he’d been plunged into icy waters. Duality curse me. “I never meant to.” For a whole host of reasons, all of which had seemed vitally important—Teomitl was so much younger than him, he was so clearly interested in Mihmatini, he was the brother of the Revered Speaker, there were customs even if the vow of celibacy only strictly applied to men with women.
None of those reasons seemed particularly important now, with Teomitl staring at him with dawning hope in his eyes. “You mean you—“
“Mihmatini is right.”
There. It was out in the open, and the gods hadn’t felt moved to strike him down. But Teomitl seemed to have frozen, so he finally curled his fingers around his offered hand and added, “I love you,” just in case.
Teomitl came perilously close to knocking the table over as he moved; Acatl had a moment to think oh, yes before strong arms hauled him into an enthusiastic, slightly messy kiss. He couldn’t stop the noise that escaped him; before Teomitl could think it was a displeased one, he grabbed his waist with one hand to keep him close and buried the other in his hair. Teomitl’s hands wound up in his hair as though they’d been made for it; when Acatl parted his lips, Teomitl’s fingers tightened as he deepened their kiss and oh, that was his tongue, gods…
By the time they broke apart, they were both breathing hard. Acatl could feel Teomitl’s heartbeat thundering in his chest, and the way his eyes shone as he looked down at him—he’d wound up more or less in Acatl’s lap, which was a new and thrilling sensation—sent sparks up his spine. His voice was rough. “You really are incredible.”
His face felt hot, and he availed himself of the opportunity to tuck it into Teomitl’s throat. Judging by the little sound Teomitl made, he liked that; Acatl filed that away for later as he asked, “What…what do you want to do now?” What are we? What should I do now?
“Whatever you want.”
Fingers carded gently through Acatl’s hair, and he felt like he could breathe again. Despite himself, he smiled; just like Teomitl, to cut straight to the heart of the matter. He lifted his head to look at him, really look at him—lips swollen from kisses, eyes heated and adoring, golden light limning his hair and earrings. You don’t need the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown yet. Just like this, you’re already perfect. He only hesitated a breath before voicing his desires.
“I want to kiss you again.”
They got around to eating the rest of the fruit, eventually.
Coda:
The sun was setting, and Acatl had never been so happy. He was laying out on the temple platform, stone warm from the sun, with a belly full of delicious food and his head in Teomitl’s lap. I love you, he thought drowsily.
One of Teomitl’s hands was still busy in his hair–he’d decided that he simply had to play with it soon after it had been freshly washed, confessing to him that it had been his most striking feature the first time they’d met, and Acatl had never been so glad he combed his hair regularly–but the other pressed gently against his lips, bearing a cube of fresh fruit. “Eat.”
“I don’t need to be hand-fed,” he breathed against Teomitl’s fingers, but took it anyway and was deeply gratified to feel him tremble. The discovery that Teomitl was deeply fond of spoiling him had been…interesting.
Soon–too soon for his liking, really–Teomitl had him sit up, and showed him the fruits of his handwork.
Hidden under his hair, there was now a single thin braid. “Do you like it?”
Acatl gazed at him—golden, warm, regal. Adoring and adored. “I love it.”
Also on AO3
-
The Revered Speaker’s mat is cold, and Teomitl can barely feel his legs. He wants to move, to sprawl out more comfortably, but he can’t.
There are too many people here. Watching him. The receiving room is packed, a sea of faces he can barely differentiate. All are in their best regalia, feathers and cotton and jade, and they are all bowing to him. Mihmatini is kneeling, her face downcast, her eyes expressionless. The Turquoise-and-Gold Crown is an impossible weight, and he thinks his neck will break from the strain.
He breathes in. Breathes out. His heart thumps steadily in his chest, a reminder that he is alive.
There is someone missing, he realizes after a while. Some gap in the crowd, a knot in the weave. Something is wrong. His gaze sharpens, focuses, and alights at the back of the room.
There is a man standing there, gaze averted. But unlike the rest of the room, who drop their eyes to the floor in respect, his stance is stiff. Teomitl has a confused impression of owl wings—no, a gray cloak—of a skull, grinning and fleshless—no, a mask. He knows, without looking, that this man has not removed his sandals.
“As one man to another…”
The crown tumbles to the floor as he shoots to his feet. The crowd does not move, still as statues and insubstantial as mist as he runs through them. Acatl, he cries, but his voice carries no sound.
Acatl is turning away. Acatl has seen him—he catches the flash of a dark eye—but he is turning away, cold and uninterested, and it makes Teomitl’s heart clench in his throat. If he can just catch up—
His hand closes around Acatl’s wrist for a moment, and then Acatl pulls away.
No!
Before he can call Acatl’s name, the world around him melts and shifts, and then he is standing in that courtyard again, watching from the sidelines like a ghost. As if through fog, he sees Mihmatini and her brothers arrayed against him. They are exhausted and bleeding, and their blood shines like the sun on the water. And he sees himself and his warriors, arrogant and proud and so, so stupid.
He sees his own mouth move; he can’t make out the words, but he knows it’s something he should never have said. He sees Acatl respond, pleading at first—and then angry. And then straightening up, blood wisping like smoke around him, and taking a step forward.
He watches, unable to move, as he draws his sword and cuts Acatl down.
When Mihmatini rushes him, face stretched in a silent scream, he closes his eyes and lifts his chin for the knife.
He woke shaking, with tears in his eyes, and hastily sat up to scrub at them with the back of a hand. No, it was just a nightmare. He wouldn’t…he wouldn’t…
“Teomitl?”
Oh. He’d woken Mihmatini, who was pushing her hair out of her face and sitting up for a better look at him. He immediately felt worse. “Go back to sleep.”
Even in the darkness of their bedroom, he could see the unimpressed look she gave him. “I’m awake. Bad dream?”
She didn’t bring up the tears, and he was grateful for that. “…Mm.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Your brother,” he blurted out. He didn’t want to talk about it, but once the dam broke all his words flooded out, a gout of blood from the heart of a sacrifice. “Acatl-tzin. He—I was Revered Speaker, and he was there in full regalia but he wouldn’t even look at me. I’d—he didn’t care to know me anymore.” I’d disappointed him. He would be my High Priest, but never again my Acatl. He sucked in a breath. “…And then I was in…that courtyard. With my sister. And I said something—I don’t know what I said, but he was going to fight me, and I—I killed him.” When he blinked, he could see the spray of blood on the inside of his eyelids. He glanced at Mihmatini out of the corner of his eye, and added, “And then you killed me.”
“I would.” It was a simple statement of fact, and he exhaled. It was perversely reassuring to know that. Her voice was quiet. “But…about the rest of it…”
She wanted an answer. He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to fight him. I don’t want him to be a—a stranger to me.”
Mihmatini was silent for a long moment, and he was terrified he’d given too much away, but then her hand came up to rub his shoulder in a soothing little circle and he could breathe again. It was breath that was entirely stolen when she informed him, “I’ve spent two years watching the way he looks at you when he thinks you don’t notice. I think even if you pulled another stupid stunt like you did with your sister, he would never treat you like that.”
The world was reeling around him. He was only vaguely conscious of his extremities, and he wouldn’t be able to swear in a court of law that his heart was still beating. “I.” He wondered if swooning like a maiden was an actual possibility. “The way Acatl-tzin looks—?! How does he—?” Priests take vows of chastity, he thought stupidly, and then I never thought there was a chance—
The part of his brain not currently screaming in panic mused that Mihmatini didn’t sound angry or jealous, both emotions he’d have expected in her place. She mostly just sounded as though she was explaining the facts to a particularly slow student. “Like you put the sun in the sky. Like how I looked at you, back when I thought I was in love with you.”
The revelations really needed to slow down, he thought dizzily. It was too early in the morning for this. “You’re not in love with me? Oh, thank the gods.”
“I will forgive you for that since clearly you’re overwrought, but…” She shook her head. “I like you. I will always love you as a friend, even when I want to strangle you, and this…” she gestured between them at their naked bodies “Is fantastic, but once I realized you can’t keep your eyes off my brother…”
Grandmother Earth, open up and swallow him right now. It would be kinder than this. “Ah.” Of course he’d known Acatl was as off-limits as it was possible to be—even if the man wasn’t a priest, Teomitl had been trying to court his sister, and certainly wanted marriage and children of his own—but from the moment he’d seen him on the temple steps, serious and tired and in desperate need of someone to take care of him, he’d been unable to look away. It had only gotten worse the longer they’d known each other; each smile, each clasp of hands or brush of fabric, each turn of a slender wrist or curve of a shoulder sent a knife through his heart. He’d done his best not to let it show on his face, for all their sakes. He thought he’d been successful.
He swallowed hard. “Mihmatini, I’m…”
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You can apologize to me by talking to Acatl. There’s a limit to how much pining I can take.”
There was a noise like a startled parrot. It took him a second to realize it had came from his throat. “You what. I—how should I—he doesn’t even—“
“He does.” Her voice was firm. “Priests aren’t allowed to marry, but you know almost everyone experiments in the calmecac and that doesn’t count—“
“I didn’t.” He’d had an embarrassingly deep crush on one of his teachers, true, but nothing else. There had always seemed to be more important things to do. Belatedly his mind conjured up the image of a younger Acatl with shorter hair, wrapped up with another boy, and he grit his teeth against a jolt of jealousy.
“—And believe me, Teomitl, I have caught his eyes on you like a jaguar on a deer.” She paused. “…A pitiful, embarrassed jaguar. But a jaguar.”
He thought of the way Acatl’s gaze normally rested on him, a sort of fondly exasperated tenderness. He imagined that gaze growing heated, the casual glances turning into something focused and lingering. He’d thought he’d seen it once, when he’d shed his regalia, but he’d convinced himself he was mistaken. With Mihmatini’s words, it didn’t seem such an obvious conclusion anymore.
He’d almost lost everything once by not talking to the people he cared about. He wouldn’t do it again.
He turned to look Mihmatini in the face. “What do you think I should do?”
The expression on her face shifted to undisguised relief. “Well…”
- -
Acatl had not been expecting visitors. When he stepped into his own courtyard to meet the gaze of a waiting Teomitl, he froze. The afternoon sunlight turned the world gold, sinking into Teomitl’s skin like honey and setting the jewels in his ears and at his wrists aflame. He barely registered the fine cotton cloak edged with colorful embroidery, too distracted by his hesitant smile. It had been months since they’d spent any great deal of time together, since that day on the temple steps when Teomitl had apologized to him. Acatl hadn’t realized how much it was possible to miss someone who was still present. He’d almost—almost—started wishing for a case they could solve together.
And now he was here, looking nervous but hopeful, with—Acatl turned his eyes away from that smile before he did something stupid—a basket of fruit by his feet. Alright. He could handle this.
“Teomitl.” I missed you. “It’s been a while.”
Teomitl couldn’t quite turn crimson, but he looked like he wanted to. It made something in Acatl’s chest twinge. “It has been. I…the fruit is for you.”
He’d known that, but hearing it confirmed was touching all the same. He risked meeting Teomitl’s eyes and saw in them a tenderness that made him smile back. “I do eat, you know.”
“Not enough,” Teomitl huffed, before flashing him a sweet smile. “And you like these.”
“Now you sound like my sister.”
“…Your sister is very wise.”
The entrance curtain jingled as they went inside. Aside from their breathing, it was the only sound for a long moment as Acatl tried to think what in the Fifth World could have brought Teomitl there today. As happy as he was to see him bright and regal and alive, lounging on the mat as though it was his house and not Acatl’s—a thought that made his face heat up, as his treacherous mind conjured an image of coming home to find Teomitl sprawled out on his sleeping mat waiting for him—not knowing why Teomitl had decided to show up with an extravagant fruit basket and a warm look itched at him.
Teomitl started cutting up a pineapple, and Acatl found his thoughts scattering as his gaze drifted to Teomitl’s hands on the knife. He really did have wonderful hands, he mused. Strong and long-fingered, touched here and there by faint scars and bearing the calluses that only came from wielding a macuahuitl—and yet, for all that, they’d always been gentle when they touched his skin. He wondered how those hands would feel—no. No. With an effort, he wrenched his mind away from that line of thought. He’s not for me to want.
“Here.” Pineapple juice glistened on Teomitl’s dark skin as he held out a slice, and Acatl swallowed unconsciously at the look on his face—open, encouraging, guileless.
He took the fruit and ate it just to have something to do that wasn’t staring. It was just-ripe and so sweet it almost hurt his teeth, but it was better than sitting there fantasizing about his former student. His brother-in-law, gods, he didn’t even want to think about how Mihmatini would feel if she knew. He had to break the silence between them. “You…came here just to bring me food? Or did something happen?” Duality, he thought, don’t tell me… “Is Mihmatini alright? I haven’t seen her very much lately.”
Teomitl fidgeted with the edge of his cloak, which—now that Acatl was looking—he saw was embroidered with jaguars chasing deer. The sun gilded the thread, glinted fire off the rings on his fingers. “She’s fine—just busy, still dealing with the plague. She sends her love. I came to tell you that I…about that incident after the coronation war…”
He couldn’t help but sigh. “If you’re about to apologize again—“
Teomitl was silent. Acatl saw by his face that he had been about to say something along those lines, and shook his head decisively. If you’re going to be like that, then I’m going to do something I should have done a long time ago. Something, in fact, he’d wanted to do since realizing Teomitl’s hair was growing out, thick and black and fluffy.
He reached out and ruffled it. Hard.
Teomitl froze for a moment, eyes wide, and then jerked his head back; for a split second he looked deeply offended, and then he caught Acatl’s eye and burst out laughing. “Acatl-tzin, you—really—“
Acatl unsuccessfully fought the urge to grin at him. “You’ve already told me you’re sorry. Unless you’ve done something else?” He might have, a paranoid part of his mind whispered. He gave it a firm mental kick.
He stalled for time with a slice of pineapple, but Acatl knew by the look on his face that, whatever he had come for, it wasn’t politics or a danger to the Fifth World. “Last night,” he began hesitantly, “I dreamt that I was Revered Speaker, and everyone bowed to me. Everyone except you.”
A chill slid down his spine. “Teomitl—“
Teomitl kept talking over him. “You were in the back, in all your regalia—you looked incredible, you always do—and you wouldn’t move, or take off your sandals, and you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t even look at me. Whatever I’d done, you didn’t even want to associate with me. That was bad enough, but then…” His voice lowered, until Acatl had to strain to hear him. “We were in that courtyard, and I watched myself kill you. And I could do nothing.” The smile that twisted his lips had nothing in common with joy. “Mihmatini took care of avenging you, though.”
He breathed in. It was all he could do. His chest ached with it.
“I…I don’t ever want any of that to happen, Acatl. You mean too much to me.”
“I…” Words seemed to have failed him. Where he’d been cold before, now his skin felt like it was on fire, his heart racing. He wiped his hands on his thighs, which didn’t help. I mean too much to him. He thinks I look incredible. “Teomitl, what are you saying?”
“…I said, once, that you weren’t mine.” Teomitl met his eyes, fierce as an eagle, and Acatl’s heart skipped a beat. “I won’t apologize for that.”
He dug his nails into his skin. The pain grounded him. “Alright…?” Just tell me, damn you. Tell me so I know whether to die or not.
“But.” Teomitl swallowed visibly, dropping his gaze to the floor—but his hand came to rest on the table, an open invitation. A shaft of sunlight fell across it. “I want to be yours.”
Oh. Oh. For a small eternity, Acatl’s mind went blank. He wants—he wants me. Me. The thought was dizzying; all the times Teomitl had bandaged his wounds, guarded him while he slept, stood jade-carved and terrible between him and destruction were engraved in his memories. And too, there were the times Teomitl had stretched like a young jaguar, or smiled so sweetly at him, or had let a touch linger a bit too long, and he’d felt desire simmer so close to the surface that he’d had to withdraw for his own sanity. And now Teomitl had come to him, and he…
The sweetness of the fruit he’d just eaten almost made him gag, now. “Teomitl. Does Mihmatini know?”
Teomitl made a noise of pure embarrassment, squeezing his eyes shut. “I told her. She was the one that encouraged—she told me that she wasn’t in love with me, and that you…might…as one man to another…”
For the second time that afternoon, Acatl felt like he’d been plunged into icy waters. Duality curse me. “I never meant to.” For a whole host of reasons, all of which had seemed vitally important—Teomitl was so much younger than him, he was so clearly interested in Mihmatini, he was the brother of the Revered Speaker, there were customs even if the vow of celibacy only strictly applied to men with women.
None of those reasons seemed particularly important now, with Teomitl staring at him with dawning hope in his eyes. “You mean you—“
“Mihmatini is right.”
There. It was out in the open, and the gods hadn’t felt moved to strike him down. But Teomitl seemed to have frozen, so he finally curled his fingers around his offered hand and added, “I love you,” just in case.
Teomitl came perilously close to knocking the table over as he moved; Acatl had a moment to think oh, yes before strong arms hauled him into an enthusiastic, slightly messy kiss. He couldn’t stop the noise that escaped him; before Teomitl could think it was a displeased one, he grabbed his waist with one hand to keep him close and buried the other in his hair. Teomitl’s hands wound up in his hair as though they’d been made for it; when Acatl parted his lips, Teomitl’s fingers tightened as he deepened their kiss and oh, that was his tongue, gods…
By the time they broke apart, they were both breathing hard. Acatl could feel Teomitl’s heartbeat thundering in his chest, and the way his eyes shone as he looked down at him—he’d wound up more or less in Acatl’s lap, which was a new and thrilling sensation—sent sparks up his spine. His voice was rough. “You really are incredible.”
His face felt hot, and he availed himself of the opportunity to tuck it into Teomitl’s throat. Judging by the little sound Teomitl made, he liked that; Acatl filed that away for later as he asked, “What…what do you want to do now?” What are we? What should I do now?
“Whatever you want.”
Fingers carded gently through Acatl’s hair, and he felt like he could breathe again. Despite himself, he smiled; just like Teomitl, to cut straight to the heart of the matter. He lifted his head to look at him, really look at him—lips swollen from kisses, eyes heated and adoring, golden light limning his hair and earrings. You don’t need the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown yet. Just like this, you’re already perfect. He only hesitated a breath before voicing his desires.
“I want to kiss you again.”
They got around to eating the rest of the fruit, eventually.
Coda:
The sun was setting, and Acatl had never been so happy. He was laying out on the temple platform, stone warm from the sun, with a belly full of delicious food and his head in Teomitl’s lap. I love you, he thought drowsily.
One of Teomitl’s hands was still busy in his hair–he’d decided that he simply had to play with it soon after it had been freshly washed, confessing to him that it had been his most striking feature the first time they’d met, and Acatl had never been so glad he combed his hair regularly–but the other pressed gently against his lips, bearing a cube of fresh fruit. “Eat.”
“I don’t need to be hand-fed,” he breathed against Teomitl’s fingers, but took it anyway and was deeply gratified to feel him tremble. The discovery that Teomitl was deeply fond of spoiling him had been…interesting.
Soon–too soon for his liking, really–Teomitl had him sit up, and showed him the fruits of his handwork.
Hidden under his hair, there was now a single thin braid. “Do you like it?”
Acatl gazed at him—golden, warm, regal. Adoring and adored. “I love it.”
-
